Red Knights battle in loss to Hempfield

LANDISVILLE - Rick Perez knows his Reading High basketball team has plenty of fight in it. Once the Red Knights begin to combine their heart with a better understanding of the game, he says, they'll start to win.

The Red Knights played from behind the whole way Monday night against Hempfield and nearly passed the Black Knights in the second half but never could clear that final hurdle, falling to the veteran club 70-59.

The Knights (1-2) erased all of a 10-point, first-half deficit and pulled into a 41-41 tie midway through the third quarter.

They fell behind again by as many as 13 points midway through the fourth, then got within range again, pulling within 62-56 with less than two minutes to play, only to let it get away again.

"The fight is going to keep us in the game," Perez said, "and when we begin to mature mentally we'll be OK."

Right now the young Red Knights, with just one veteran player, aren't there, and they're paying the price against top-notch competition.

They lost their opener against Williamsport and fell short against Hempfield (2-0), which is shaping up as one of the top Quad-A teams in District 3.

They figure to take more lumps during their brutal opening-week schedule, but Perez knows eventually they'll dish some out, too.

They got a career-high 15 points from point guard Baba Waples, 13 of them coming in the second half when he found his stroke from the outside and knocked down three treys.

Reading also got 12 points off the bench from Ta-Jahn Walton, all of them on 3-pointers.

What they didn't get was enough defensive stops, especially out of their fullcourt press, which they used the whole way in hopes of wearing down the Black Knights.

They couldn't.

Drew Johnson, the only junior in Danny Walck's starting five, only got stronger as the game went on. He poured in 11 of his game-high 29 points in the final quarter and broke Reading's pressure several times.

Hempfield hit 24-of-36 shots from the foul line overall and 14-of-18 in the final quarter, effectively neutralizing Reading's outside shooting and its constant pressure.

Despite Reading's all-out assault, Hempfield turned it over just seven times in the second half and beat the press for numerous layups.

"They shredded our press," Perez said. "They did a good job. We got turnovers; I feel we got to their legs. But the fouls, that killed us. We just fouled too much. The more they went to the line and stopped play, (that) takes away our edge, which is our physical hustle."

Two Reading players fouled out and two others finished with four fouls.

Despite all of that the Red Knights were still in the game when Gil Benz converted a three-point play to make it 62-56 with 1:46 to go.

Reading forced a turnover with its press on the next possession but couldn't convert on the other end and scored just one basket the rest of the way.

"There was waves of it," Walck, the former Reading High coach, said of the Red Knights' fullcourt pressure. "There was no quit in that."

Nor in any of Reading's game. It just couldn't overcome Hempfield's experience, its size advantage - which led to a 40-26 advantage on the boards - or its advantage at the line.

"Their heart, I would never second-guess it," Perez said of his team. "But it's their minds we've got to work on right now."